COPENHAGEN — Almost 30 years after they killed their parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez launched a beautification project at the California prison where they are serving life sentences.

Their project was inspired by the Norwegian approach to prison which believes that rehabilitation in humane prisons surrounded by nature leads to successful reintegration into society, even for those who have committed terrible crimes.

Norway is a long, narrow country in northern Europe, running 1,100 miles from north to south. Small prisons have been set up all over the country, which allows people to serve their sentences close to home, says Kristian Mjland, Norwegian Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Agder in Kristiansand.

The entire country has about 3,000 people in prison, he said, making Norway’s per capita prison rate about one-tenth that of the United States.

Norway has some of the world’s lowest recidivism rates. Statistical statistics show that the percentage of people who are re-sentenced within two years of release in 2020 is 16%, and the number is decreasing every year. Meanwhile, a US Department of Justice survey conducted over a decade found that 66% of people released from state prisons in 24 states were rearrested within three years, and most of them were rearrested.

Mjland said Norway’s prison system is based on the principles that people should be “treated decently by well-trained and decent staff” and have “opportunities for meaningful activities during the day” – something he called the “principle of normality” – and that they should retain their basic rights.

Mjland, whose research has focused on punishment and prisons, said that in Norway, for example, prisoners retain the right to vote and access services such as libraries, health care and education provided by the same providers that work in the wider community.

Norway also runs open prisons, some on islands where there is a lot of agriculture and contact with nature. The most famous one is on the island of Bastoey, “which is very beautiful in the Oslofjord,” Mjland said.

Even Anders Behring Breivik—who killed eight people in the bombing of a government building in Oslo in 2011, then gunned down 69 more at a holiday camp for left-wing youth activists—has a dining room, gym and TV room with an Xbox. His cell wall is decorated with a poster of the Eiffel Tower and parakeets share his space.

The idea of ​​creating normal, humane conditions for people in prison is also beginning to spread in the United States.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, for example, has in recent years tried to apply some elements of the Nordic approach, unveiling a program it calls “Little Scandinavia” at a prison in Chester in 2022.

The Menendez brothers’ case was again in the public spotlight Thursday when the Los Angeles County district attorney recommended that their life sentences without parole be thrown out. Prosecutors hope a judge will appeal against them so they can be eligible for parole.

If the judge agrees, a conditional sentence must then approve their release. The final decision rests with the Governor of California.

Their lawyer and the LA District Attorney argued that they have served enough time, citing evidence that they were physically and sexually abused at the hands of their father for entertainment. They also say the brothers, now in their 50s, are model prisoners committed to rehabilitation and redemption.

Both point to the brothers’ years of efforts to improve the San Diego prison where they have lived for six years. Before that, the two had been in separate prisons since 1996.

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In 2018, Lyle Menendez launched the Green Space beautification program at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. His brother, Erik Menendez, is the lead painter for a massive mural depicting San Diego landmarks.

“This project hopes to normalize the environment inside the prison to reflect the living environment outside the prison,” Pedro Calderón Michel, deputy press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told the AP in an email Friday.

The Menendez brothers’ work is ongoing, with the ultimate goal of transforming the prison yard “from an oppressive slab of concrete and gravel into a normalized park-like campus environment surrounded by a majestic landscape mural,” according to the project’s website.

The final product will include outdoor classrooms, meeting spaces for rehabilitation groups and training areas for service dogs.

The prison system recently launched the “California Model” in hopes of bringing similar projects across the state to build “safer communities through rehabilitation, education and reentry,” Calderón Michel wrote.

The brothers’ attorney, Mark Geragos, said he believes Lyle Menendez learned about the Norwegian model during his college classes. Lyle Menendez is currently enrolled in a master’s program studying urban planning and recidivism, and Geragos said his client hopes the beautification will make reintegration into society easier for people on parole.

“When you’re there in a gray space that’s not very welcoming, it’s somewhat disorienting,” Geragos told The Associated Press on Friday. “And you also have the problem that the terrain is not something that is welcoming or helpful in terms of acclimating and re-acclimating to a community.”

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Dominique Moran, a professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK, said that in her research, she found that the introduction of green spaces in prisons improves the well-being of prisoners and correctional staff.

“Green spaces in prisons reduce self-harm and violence, and also reduce staff illness,” said Moran, author of “Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration.”

Moran has studied prisons around the world and said in an emailed statement that in the Scandinavian approach, “people go to prison as punishment, not FOR additional punishment.”

“The deprivation of liberty is in itself the punishment,” she said. “There should be no additional punishment because of the nature of the environment in which people are held.”

Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Los Angeles. David Keyton contributed from Berlin.